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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25610704">Torched Thorns</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_t2/pseuds/for_t2'>for_t2</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hunger Games Series - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>5+1 Things, Angst, Baking, F/F, Fire, Katniss Everdeen Needs a Hug, Medical Torture, Mining disasters, Nightmares, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Roses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:40:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,323</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25610704</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_t2/pseuds/for_t2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Five nightmares Katniss had and one time she slept</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Katniss Everdeen/Johanna Mason</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>44</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Torched Thorns</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>1. </strong>
</p>
<p>“You know, spend too long down here and your dress is going to turn black.”</p>
<p>Prim looked up from her sandwich. Snorted in Katniss’s general direction. “Black’s your favourite colour.”</p>
<p>“No it isn’t.” It definitely wasn’t. Katniss had tons of favourite. Like… She had tons.</p>
<p>“Uh-huh.”</p>
<p>“Well, there are different shades of black.” She polished off the last of the sandwich Prim had brought down into the mines. A sandwich much fresher, much fuller than anything miners usually got to eat during the day, but a sandwich that meant that Prim had came down because another miner got injured. And ever since the Capitol had increased the quotas, Katniss was eating more and more of Prim’s sandwiches (even if the sandwiches got a little less full each time). </p>
<p>“Like?”</p>
<p>“Like…” Katniss rolled up the cloth the sandwich had came in. Tossed it at Prim. Hit her right in the dead centre of her forehead. “Black.” She grabbed her pickaxe as she got up. Quotas, after all, had to be met. “Come on, I’ll show you the way out.”</p>
<p>“I’ve come down here every day.”</p>
<p>“You might get lost.”</p>
<p>“No I won’t.” Prim happily jumped after Katniss anyway. The more the quotas got raised, the more time Katniss had to spend down chipping away at the coal in the mines, and the more times Prim had to spend trying to keep up in what passed as the district hospital.</p>
<p>“You might. You never know what, um…” Katniss’s breath caught in her throat for a split second as her eyes caught the girl who’s name she still couldn’t remember, but who’s every detail she could. From District 7, here to help build the next section of the mine, hauling beams of wood in a way that just her muscles-- </p>
<p>A coal pebble bounced off Katniss’s forehead. “Katniss?” Prim was already a few metres ahead of her, waiting by the elevator, trying desperately not to giggle. “Shouldn’t you be working?”</p>
<p>“Shut up.” Katniss picked up the pace.</p>
<p>Stopped.</p>
<p>The air was… wrong. She sniffed it. There was just the faint trace of something… “Prim!”</p>
<p>She saw the spark before she could see anything else.</p>
<p>
  <strong>2. </strong>
</p>
<p>“What do you think?</p>
<p>“I dunno.” Gale peered down at the tray. At Katniss. “She needs more flavour.”</p>
<p>“That’s exactly what I was thinking!” Peeta gave him a smile. “She’s too sour. Too bitter. Nobody will eat her like this.”As much as Katniss tried to move, tried to speak, to squirm and wiggle on the tray, she couldn’t. All she could do was watch as Peeta sprinkled more sugar over her. “Hmm.” As he tapped his spoon against her. “Still needs a little something special.”</p>
<p>“How about these?”</p>
<p>“Oh, perfect.” Peeta gave Gale another wide smile. Carefully arranged rose petals around Katniss. “Absolutely perfect.” He turned back to the tables in his bakery. Waved at Haymitch, at Effie, Johanna, Cressida, Prim, everyone sitting there ready to eat. “She’ll be ready soon!”</p>
<p>And then shoved the tray into the oven.</p>
<p>Slammed the door shut behind her, the disturbed, leftover ash fluttering back down into the coals around her, the cramped, cast iron walls crushing through the darknes.</p>
<p>All she could do was close her eyes as the flames flared up.</p>
<p>
  <strong>3. </strong>
</p>
<p>“Please.”</p>
<p>“Shh.” Prim wiped the sweat off Katniss’s forehead. Adjusted the straps and the endless shining cameras focused down on the hospital bench. “You’ll be ready to fight again in no time.”</p>
<p>“I can’t.” Katniss tries to shake her head. Tried to squirm away. But the straps held tight. “I can’t.”</p>
<p>“Course you can.” Prim carried a tray of scalpels over. Set them down lightly next to Katniss. “You’re the Mockingjay. You’re a fighter.”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“Yes, Katniss, you are.” Prim smiled eerily. “Besides, look at Johanna. She’s almost done managing her hydrophobia, and she’s just raving to get back.” Prim titled Katniss’s head to the side, just enough for her to see the nurses tip Johanna’s bed down the hovercraft hatch and down down into the ocean. “Have you thought about any new arrows you want to try out?”</p>
<p>Katniss shook her head even more furiously as Prim picked up one the scalpels. A very, very sharp one.</p>
<p>“I like the exploding ones. Gale’s very clever.”</p>
<p>“Prim—”</p>
<p>“Shh.” Prim cut off the first layer of Katniss’s sweater. Rubbed a cold alcohol that smelled like roses across her skin. “We don’t want you to get too used to morphling, so…” Pressed the tip of the scalpel down. “This might hurt a little.”</p>
<p>“This isn’t real.” Katniss shut her eyes. Tries to feel the metal just starting to cut through her blood. “Prim wouldn’t—”</p>
<p>“Katniss wouldn’t let her sister get killed.”</p>
<p>
  <strong>4.</strong>
</p>
<p>The wall of ruined Capitol apartments loomed tall behind the pure white wall of peacekeepers. And out through the wall poked more guns than Katniss could count. Guns pointed right at her.</p>
<p>“No.” Katniss unholstered her bow. “I’m not going to fight.” Carefully laid it down on the dusty, broken stones at her feet.</p>
<p>“It’s too late for that, Katniss.” Coin’s, no, President Coin’s voice rang out and echoed off the walls surrounded them. “You betrayed District 13. And you know what happens to traitors.” And out from the walls hands pushed a person. Johanna. Tossed an axe at her feet. “Don’t you?”</p>
<p>“I’m not going to fight.”</p>
<p>“Isn’t that you what you said in your first Games?” The hands pushed and shoved again and again. Forced two new people to their knees, just at the edge of the walls, at before the edge of the guns. “Fortunately, District 13 has spent a long time developing our weapons research.” Coin uncorked two syringes. One for Annie, one for Prim.</p>
<p>“What is that?”</p>
<p>“I think you remember nightlock?” The two hostages almost immediately started convulsing. “You have five minutes to win an antidote.”</p>
<p>“No.” Katniss couldn’t. No. She couldn’t. She--  </p>
<p>“Just one more Games, Mockingjay.” The cameras rose around the walls. “Just one more.”</p>
<p>
  <strong>5.</strong>
</p>
<p>“Ah, I’m glad you could join me, Ms. Everdeen.” Snow stood up from his garden chair with all the grace of a tyrannical elder statesman. “Please, take a seat.”</p>
<p>Katniss carefully stepped through the greenhouse grass. Stopped at the sight of the empty.</p>
<p>“Don’t be shy.” Snow smiled, almost smirked at the chair weaved of rose bushes. “The most special chair for Panem’s most special girl.”</p>
<p>Katniss hesitated for one more second. Gasped as the bushes moved as she sat down, as they circled around her arms and legs, holding her tight to the chair, thorns digging through her clothes, through her skin and drawing pinpricks of blood red like the flowers.</p>
<p>“Some tea?” He held up a teapot decorated with roses. Poured out a cup of tea that smelled like roses. Smiled a smile that reeked of roses when Katniss shook her head. “You’ll have to get used to the taste eventually.” He took a happy sip of the tea for himself before pulling out this notebook and his rose-coloured pen. “Shall we begin, then?”</p>
<p>The TV in front of them flickered to life with pictures of violence and death. Of Hunger Games.</p>
<p>“Your ideas were most useful for the 125<sup>th</sup> Quarter Quell.” He scratched down the first few words into his notebook. “All of Panem is so excited to hear what you have for them this year.”</p>
<p>
  <strong>+1 </strong>
</p>
<p>The fire danced around the fireplace almost hypnotically, and Katniss couldn’t keep her eyes off it, as if the light could burn through her and chase the night away.</p>
<p>She stared at it.</p>
<p>And stared.</p>
<p>And-- </p>
<p>“Hey.” Until Johanna gave her a hard poke. “You’re falling asleep, brainless. Shouldn’t you find a bed?”</p>
<p>For a moment, Katniss wanted to scream. Until the sleepiness won over the adrenaline. Until she titled over, right onto Johanna’s shoulder. “Yeah.”</p>
<p>For another moment, Johanna froze. Until she tentatively wrapped an arm around her. “The nightmares fucking suck, eh?”</p>
<p> </p>
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